The Moon Follower 2016

Mark Maggiori created this painting, “The Moon Follower,” with oils, crafting a narrative steeped in the visual language of the American West. Maggiori, who grew up in France, brings an outsider’s romantic perspective to this iconic imagery. The painting presents a cowboy, a figure historically entangled with notions of masculinity, freedom, and conquest, but here he is captured in a moment of quiet contemplation. Overlooking the expansive landscape, the cowboy, bathed in moonlight, appears pensive. This stands in contrast to the often rugged and adventurous depictions of cowboys. The emotional depth of the painting lies in this tension—the cowboy, a symbol of rugged individualism, seems humbled by the vastness of the natural world. “I am trying to show what it’s like to be out there,” Maggiori has said, and the artwork beautifully encapsulates this sentiment. It invites us to reflect on the myths and realities of the American West.